Pony.ai, a year-old California-based self-driving car startup, announced it recently completed a $112 million Series A funding round at an undisclosed valuation, according to TechCrunch.

Morningside Venture Capital and Legend Capital, two Chinese venture firms, led the round, and were joined by eight other venture firms, including Comcast Ventures, IDG Capital Partners, Polaris Capital Group, and Sequoia Capital.

As TechCrunch points out, this round is particularly large, surpassing the median raised via initial public offering (IPO) in 2017. Pony.ai is working on a platform that it claims can link self-driving cars' disparate technologies to help power the vehicles.

Its platform aims to connect a self-driving car's sensors, software, cameras, and other technologies to create a system capable of Level 4 autonomy. A vehicle equipped with Pony.ai's system would be able to operate on its own under certain confined scenarios, but still feature a steering wheel and pedals, making it similar to the systems auto supplier Aptiv is building.

The platform, which is currently in testing, is designed to give cars this level of autonomy only in confined areas, or via "geofenced applications," cofounder James Peng told TechCrunch. The company is currently trialing cars with a version of its platform in the San Francisco Bay area, as well as in parts of China, where it sees a particularly large opportunity. Pony.ai says it expects the platform will be commercially ready in two or three years, and that it intends to use the fresh capital to deploy new test cars in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, largely because the company opened its second office there last year, and the region's government has been very supportive of self-driving cars.

Pony.ai appears poised to be a major player in the crowded Chinese autonomous car technology market, even if it doesn't clear away the competition from larger players.The Chinese self-driving technology space is dominated by a handful of the largest tech firms in the country, including Baidu and internet holding giant Tencent, which operates popular messaging app WeChat.

Additionally, a number of foreign automotive suppliers are on the periphery, including Bosch, Continental, and Magna, and could sell their technologies to Chinese automakers. Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, meanwhile, is building technologies in-house that it eventually hopes to use in cars in its fleet to give them autonomy. In such a busy landscape, it's not entirely clear whether Pony.ai will be competing directly with these companies or acting as a supplier. However, such a large funding round could help it expand testing rapidly, enabling the company to identify areas for improvement and iterate on its platform.

That could, in turn, persuade automakers to choose it over potential competing systems. Additionally, the company could be showcasing its products to drum up interest in a buyout, following a similar pattern to NuTonomy, an autonomous car startup that Aptiv purchased for $450 million.

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